


Stylish Whims

by Badwolf36



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Banter, Childhood Memories, Friendship, Gen, Hair Braiding, Kindness, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 20:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10794468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badwolf36/pseuds/Badwolf36
Summary: Natori's random whim leads to an insightful evening and a new hairstyle for Hiiragi, laughter for Madara, and a slew of emotions for Natsume.





	Stylish Whims

**Author's Note:**

> I can't tell you how many times I changed the title for this one. =S  
> I hope you enjoy it!

Despite other’s opinions to the contrary, Hiiragi knows Shuuichi Natori isn’t perfect.

The part-time exorcist and part-time actor has his good qualities, of course. He’s kind to his shiki and to the select few he trusts (like Takashi Natsume). He’s talented at both of his jobs. And he’s capable of being _more_ , which is a quality she finds endlessly appealing after being tethered to a storehouse by a selfish human for far too long.

That being said, Natori sometimes gets whims that he then indulges in strange ways. Tonight, on a trip involving Natori, herself, Natsume, and Madara (the pig-cat), Natori had decided he was going to style her hair.

And he’s _terrible_ at it.

Hiiragi had nearly been exorcised by this very man, but somehow it hadn’t hurt nearly as badly as him yanking a comb through her hair with absolutely no finesse for the umpteenth time this evening.

Madara, happily drunk, is only too pleased to chime in on the situation. “Maybe you could have those paper dolls of yours do a better job!”

“Nyanko-sensei!” Natsume immediately chastises, shooting both Hiiragi and Natori an apologetic look.

Natori just huffs. “I’ve watched the stylists do this _loads_ of times.”

“But he’s terrible!” Madara protests to Natsume, acting as though Natori hadn’t spoken. For emphasis, he bashes the tiny paw of his lucky cat form against the low table they’re gathered around in their hotel room. “ _She_ ,” he gestures at Hiiragi, “keeps wincing like she’s being slowly tortured, and _he_ ,” he gestures to Natori, “is oblivious!”

Natsume glances over at them, and it’s remarkably clear from his expression that he absolutely agrees with the pig-cat. It’s also clear from the way he flicks Madara’s ear and then tries to smother him with his light-blue yukata sleeve that he’s too polite to say it or let anyone else say it.

Natori (wearing the same yukata as Natsume) taps her on the shoulder and she turns around to find him with large tears in his eyes. She wonders if he’s drunk (he and the pig-cat _had_ started on the sake while she had accompanied Natsume to the hotel lobby to gather snacks).

“Is it true, Hiiragi?”

“You have other redeeming qualities,” Hiiragi says bluntly. She’s never been one to spare her words, particularly when it comes to her sometimes foolish master.

“Hiiragi! Oh, the betrayal!” Natori sobs, voice pitched high like the actress he had worked with in his last romantic comedy. With overly enthusiastic histrionics, he throws himself to the ground to continue weeping into his arms, the comb he had been using now clenched in his fist as he pounded it against the tatami floor.

Hiiragi can’t quite decide how she feels about the (real? fake?) theatrics, but is spared making a judgement call when Natsume delicately clears his throat.

“Ah, Hiiragi?”

“Yes?” she asks, attention still on her master, who is now rolling around on the ground.

“I could, um, try? Your hair. To fix it, I mean.”

_That_ makes her look up. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Natori still and Madara’s lazy posture sharpen.

Natsume frequently volunteers to help ayakashi in need, but Hiiragi gets the feeling there’s something deeper behind Natsume’s offer. She can’t put her finger on what it is though. Pondering it further would likely be pointless, so she acts.

“Are you better than him?” she asks Natsume, pointing a delicate (and mildly accusing) finger at Natori.

“Hey!” he protests, while Madara howls, “Anybody would be better than him!”

“I…uh…believe so,” Natsume says shyly, scratching at his cheek with his right pointer finger and avoiding her masked gaze. “I’ve had a little practice at least.”

“Good enough. You have my permission.”

Honestly, since this was Natori’s idea in the first place, she could have just steered the evening in a different direction. But her curiosity about the world had reawakened at the same time the noose was removed from her neck and her mask cracked. (That was also the same time she was reintroduced to the novelty of kind humans.) And while she isn’t nearly as hedonistic as Madara, she’s sometimes just as inclined to indulge her own caprices.

Natsume crawls the short distance to her back, plucking the comb from Natori’s lax grip as he goes. Natori, for his part, scooches closer to the table and nudges his empty sake cup with his finger until Madara grumbles and pours for him.

Hiiragi isn’t sure what she’s expecting from Natsume, but it isn’t for his fingers to thread through her hair gently.

“Honestly, Natori-san. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to turn her hair into a bird nest.”

“It’s not my fault,” Natori says, his actor’s smile perfectly masking the truth that it’s entirely his fault.

Hiiragi hears Natsume huff, but he doesn’t continue to berate the other man. Instead, he uses the fingers of his left hand to gather her hair together firmly at the base of her neck. The fingers of his right then start sorting through the tangles. Behind her mask, Hiiragi’s eyes widen in surprise at the lack of pain, or even discomfort.

From his position at her back, Natsume starts humming softly, the tune in time with his sure and steady motions.

Once he’s seemingly satisfied he’s rid her hair of tangles, Natsume picks up the comb and begins tugging it through her hair with the same care he’d used with his fingers.

Hiiragi settles into the experience, letting Natori and Madara’s heated argument (something about radio dramas?) fade into the background. Natsume continues his humming; occasionally interrupting it with a quiet instruction to tilt her head this way or that.

He combs a large chunk of hair back from the right side of her face. Splitting the strands, Hiiragi sees him deftly begin to weave them together out of the corner of her eye.

“Hold this please,” he says after a moment, guiding her hand to the end of the braid he’s created. Natsume then repeats the process on the other side of her head.

Finishing that, he seems to hesitate for a moment.

“Here,” Madara mumbles around the ponytail holder he has in his mouth. Hiiragi hadn’t even noticed when he stopped arguing with Natori, much less left to find and return with the small circle of black elastic.

“Thanks, Sensei,” Natsume says as he grabs the hair tie with his unoccupied hand.

There’s a bit more fussing, a few more hummed notes, and then Natsume (with pride she’s unused to hearing in his voice) pronounces, “Done!”

“Let me see! Let me see!” Natori says, doing a slightly unsteady crabwalk until he’s completely behind Hiiragi as well. “Oh…”

“Is it bad?” Natsume asks, voice failing to hide his disappointment.

Hiiragi can hear the shifting of cloth in the background and knows without looking that Natori has placed a hand on Natsume’s shoulder. It’s one of his go-to comforting moves in both of his professions.

“Natsume-san, I can honestly say that this is on par with professional stylists.”

“Oh,” Natsume says, words infused with soft pleasure.

Hiiragi has been patient up until this point, but the desire to see what she looks like suddenly became paramount.

“Can I see?” she asks, twisting around. Natsume has a light blush dusting his cheeks, and Natori’s normal enthusiasm has faded into an easy contemplation.

“Hermph,” Madara says. Hiiragi turns back and looks down to find the pig-cat with the handle of a large blue makeup mirror clenched between his jaws, one she recognizes as Natori’s. He spits it out and proffers the mirror with a nudge of his paw. “Here,” he repeats.

“Thank you,” she says. “Although this won’t let me see the back of my head.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Madara says. “Your pretty boy practically has a hall of mirrors in his bag. I’ll get another one.”

“I do _not_ have that many mirrors,” Natori assures Natsume behind her back.

“He does,” Hiiragi says flatly, watching the pig-cat’s round tail become the only thing visible of Madara as he roots around in Natori’s luggage. “And more makeup than his female costars.”

“Slander!” Natori dramatically proclaims, moving forward so he can clutch at her pink kimono sleeve (her black haori had been carefully hung up on the other side of the room earlier in the evening. “Thou dost do me wrong, milady!”

Hiiragi rolls her eyes behind her mask and shakes her sleeve until Natori’s grip slips and he nearly punches himself in the face. Madara starts choking with laughter around the handle of another mirror, but he still manages to haul it to her before he collapses to the floor and continues snickering with amusement.

Natsume snickers too, although much more softly. He leans to the side and snags the first mirror Madara dragged over, then hands her the second.

“Here,” he says, and she holds her mirror up. It takes a moment to get the angles right, but then she can see.

Natsume has bound the two braids he’s made in her hair together at the back of her head. He’s then flipped the tails of both braids up and over to tuck them into the space between her head and where the braids come together. That final move means the ponytail holder is invisible behind the twists of blond hair.

The half-crown makes her feel… _beautiful_. It’s unfamiliar, but it’s also kind of nice. She tilts the mirror a bit, catching a glimpse of Natsume. He still looks a bit nervous, even though he’s blushing as well.

“Natsume!” she says sharply, and he straightens up like someone replaced his spine with a piece of rigid bamboo.

“Yy-yes?”

Hiiragi puts her mirror down on the table and shifts until she’s facing Natsume, who has set his own mirror down at his side.

Considering her actions for a moment, Hiiragi decides to go for maximum impact. So instead of scolding (like she’s sure Natsume expects), or bowing (like she knows Natori expects), or taking out the hairstyle (like Madara might expect), she reaches out and draws Natsume into a gentle embrace.

He stiffens in her arms immediately. “Hiiragi?”

“I love it,” she whispers into his ear, making sure to infuse her words with the genuine sincerity she feels. “Thank you.”

Hesitantly, Natsume returns her embrace, carefully placing his hands high on her back.

“You’re welcome,” he whispers.

They break apart, and Hiiragi is pleased to find Natsume smiling, his blush now more present than ever.

“It suits you,” Madara chimes in. “Where’d you learn that, Natsume?”

“I’m rather curious as to that as well,” Natori says, then adds, “You do look lovely, Hiiragi.”

“Thank you,” she responds, then awaits Natsume’s explanation.

Natsume shuffles on his knees a bit, settling himself (and possibly bracing himself).

“It’s not that big of a deal really. One of the families that…” he hesitates, obviously trying to search for a kind word. From what Hiiragi knows of his past, there probably isn’t one. “They had a little girl, Kisa, and she had long black hair she always wanted me to braid so she’d look like her dolls. A babysitter taught me how to do it one day after Kisa had already made her redo it three times.”

His expression seems to drift as he says, “A youkai cut off all her hair one night. She cried for days and the family thought I…”

He doesn’t elaborate on what accusations were likely leveled against him, but Hiiragi already knows how the story ends. She’s proven right seconds later.

“I moved shortly after that, and it’s not a skill I get to use much. So thank you for, uh, letting me.”

“You’re welcome,” Hiiragi says, “although I should be the one to thank you.”

A sort of charged silence settles over the room as Natsume collects the comb and mirrors and returns them to Natori’s bag while Madara and Natori reclaim their former places across from one another with the sake bottle in between them on the table.

Hiiragi, for her part, keeps delicately running her fingertips over the braid above her left ear. Her smile is hidden by her mask, but she suddenly (almost _desperately_ ) wants Natsume to know that his skills are valued, and, even more, that his kindness is something she cherishes. The emotions are some of the strongest she’s felt in years (nearly as strong as her first meeting with the nice boy who called himself Shuuichi), and the rush of them is disconcerting.

Natsume, returning to his spot at the table, idly opens a bag of bite-sized cookies he’s brought back with him. He easily tosses one to Madara, who gulps it down mid-air without spilling a drop of sake from the cup he’s got clutched in his paw.

“Impressive,” Natori says, whistling at the feat.

“Sensei, you could at least act like it’s hard,” Natsume says, almost pouting as he tries and fails to do the same thing, the cookie bouncing off his face and onto the table’s polished wood surface. Then, seeming to notice her preoccupation with her hair, he asks, “Are you okay, Hiiragi?”

“Natsume!” she says, much louder than she intended. Natsume jerks back a little, and Natori scoots a little closer to her, pressing his left knee along her leg in…warning? Solidarity?

“Yes?” Natsume looks wary, like he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She glances at Madara, who returns the fixed gaze of her mask with one evenly divided between warning and encouragement. Bolstered, she turns back to Natsume.

“Would you…that is, if you’d like to, the next time we’re all together,” and here Natsume starts smiling, likely at the implication that there will _be_ a next time where they come together for something peaceful like this trip, “I’d like it if you did my hair again.”

“I’d like that. I mean, yes. I will. Next time.”

Hiiragi is pleased to see Natsume’s natural smile grow a little wider. Her pleasure quickly morphs into confusion though, when that smile transforms into a smirk. A _familiar_ smirk. One she’s seen practiced countless times in the oodles of mirrors her master likes to admire himself in.

And then she’s rolling her eyes even though no one can see them behind her mask, because in a perfect imitation of Natori’s character from his latest drama (some drivel about a young doctor and his beautiful heart patient), Natsume says, “ _Until we meet again, my sweetest flower_.”

Natori chokes on his own spit beside her, before wailing Natsume’s name with dismay. Madara’s back to howling with laughter again, whapping Natsume with his tiny paws for “imitating that giant schmuck.”

In the meantime, Natsume winks at her, visibly pleased when she starts shaking her head in exasperated bemusement. He then begins fending off his bodyguard’s assault, slapping at Madara’s furry head with his hands.

“Hiiragi?” Natori asks, again pressing his knee against her leg. “Are you…?”

He appears to be fumbling for his words, an uncommon sight. Hiiragi, taking pity on him, once again reaches up to touch her hair. The evening could have gone much differently if she’d made a different choice, or if Natsume had, or if Natori had never suggested such a crazy thing in the first place. She knocks her leg back into Natori’s knee, and says, “Sometimes, you have good ideas.”

Natori looks surprised, almost stunned. Then he glances at her hair, over to Natsume and Madara, and then back to her. The shrewd expression he wears warms up, and he nods, obviously catching her meaning.

“Sometimes,” he agrees, shifting until his shoulder is pressed up against hers. Hiiragi indulges in the contact further by leaning into Natori’s side. “Sometimes.”

Hiiragi closes her eyes, feels Natori’s warmth against her, and listens to the cheerful bickering of the humans and ayakashi who remind (and keep reminding) her that kindness still exists in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are adored, so please leave one if you enjoyed the story. Thanks for reading!


End file.
